Ford Performance NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski returned to his home state Thursday afternoon to promote the upcoming Quicken Loans 400 race weekend at Michigan International Speedway June 12-14. Part of his day of activities including visiting his favorite NFL team, the Detroit Lions, as they held OTA workouts at their Allen Park facility. The Rochester Hills native spoke to media about being a lifelong Lions fan, not being on the NASCAR driver council, his quest for a Ford GT and video games.
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THIS? “I am impressed with these guys. They are phenomenal athletes and I watch their techniques and style and I love coming here because being a race car driver, I have been very fortunate to see and be a part of other teams events. Whether it was Michigan football at the Big House or going to different baseball or hockey games. I went to the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this year. This is my first time at Detroit Lions camp which is kind of ironic because it is one of my favorite teams. I am surprised it took us this long to put it together but I am glad we did. I love coming to these things. You can see all the cultures. Even though all sports are similar in their competitive nature, all the teams’ cultures I have learned over time are not and I like to see them soak them in. All the teams have their own cultural differences and I always feel I take something away from these events to help better myself.”
HOW ARE RACE CAR DRIVERS AS ATHLETES? “Well, it is a very complex question. You see a football player and the question is answered very quickly by one’s ability to accelerate, jump, you name it, things of that nature. But you look at a race car and it is hard to put yourself in that environment because it is almost to a detriment that most people drive a street car and they try to relate that to what it means to be a race car driver. I get the question a lot about when I get on the roads out of a race car if I speed. The answer is no because it is a completely different environment. It is hard for people to separate that. A race car and what it requires to be an athlete is a high stress environment and high stress being defined by the knowledge that if you make a mistake it could kill you. It is a high stress environment in terms of long durations and extreme heat. All of those things combined with the hand-eye coordination make it, to me, an extremely athletic environment. Some people are more acclimated to it than others and I can understand how some might not understand that. I can say that if I put most of these guys in the race car and ran them for a few hours they would probably be just as tired as they will be after today’s practice.”
DO YOU TRAIN? “Oh absolutely.”
WHAT DO YOU DO? “I don’t tell people. Sorry. Trade secrets.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU GET TO WATCH THE LIONS? “I watch every game I can. I really hate it when we have races that conflict because I try to do the DVR record but someone always tells me the score as soon as I get out of the car and then I don’t want to watch the game. We know what is going on. My trainer is actually from this area too and he always seems to have every player on the team on his fantasy team. He is always keeping us up to date.”
CREW CHIEF AND HEAD COACH, THERE ARE A LOT OF SIMILARITIES. “Yeah, I think both of them have a tremendous responsibility to keep a team focused and set on the specific goal. It is easy to say, “what is the goal?’ and it is to win. That is a dull answer. But there are complexities in between of how you are going to get there and what path you are going to take. As I was eluding to earlier, the culture you are going to set. I think of a coach and crew chief as more so setting a culture that hopefully leads to results.”
WHERE DO YOU STAND IN THE CHASE NOW? “We are locked in to it. We are sixth in points but that doesn’t really mean anything. It is like playoff seeding at best. We are really excited to have gotten an early win this season. Last year we had the most wins and got to kind of the third round, almost I guess you would say the conference championship game. We had a hiccup and didn’t get where we wanted to go to win another championship. We are excited to be locked in this early in the season and hope we can get through those subsequent rounds.”
MIS IS COMING UP, THAT IS A GOOD TRACK FOR YOU. “We have been up and down here. We have had a second and a third and I think some in between top-10 runs but we haven’t been able to break through for a number of reasons. I am very hopeful for this year. We know we have our work cut out for us. The 4, 24 and 48 have all been really, really fast on these tracks of this nature like Michigan International Speedway. It relies a lot on aerodynamics and horsepower. It will be a tough battle for us but I am very optimistic. I know we have a new package that we are saving just for that race and I am hoping it will pay off.”
YOU TOLD GOLDEN TATE YOU WOULD TRY TO GET HIM THIS MUSTANG PACE CAR IF THEY WIN THE SUPER BOWL. WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO FOR YOU IF YOU WIN THE CUP? “I am working on a deal right now. I don’t know if you have seen the new Ford GT but I have been trying to convince Ford very simply, the last race of the year is Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead. I told them they need to take a Ford GT, make it the pace car for all the races and if a Ford driver wins the Sprint Cup championship, just hand him the keys in victory lane. That is what I am going for. I think I am like 75-percent of the way there.”
HAVE YOU DRIVEN THAT FISKER ROCKET YET? “I haven’t, no. There are not enough built for them to trust me to drive it. I am probably going to do something to it that I am not supposed to.”
DO THEY REALLY CONSIDER IDEAS LIKE THAT? “Oh yeah. Ford is great. They are great to work with. Their leadership group, Mark Fields, I have known him for a number of years now. I remember him asking me after I won the championship in 2012 how big the party was and I made it a point to tell him it would be bigger if he was a part of it. I think he will hold me to that. I would really like to celebrate a championship with Ford.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW DRIVERS COUNCIL? “It is so new that it is hard to really have an opinion. I think we all want to see results and results in this case mean continuing to improve the on-track product that we provide our fans.”
IS THERE SOMETHING SPECIFIC YOU WANT TO SEE IT ACHIEVE? “Oh geez, a lot of things. I hate to put one thing above another but if I was going to I would say the cars reliance on aerodynamics needs to be severely decreased.”
ARE YOU HAPPY THERE IS AN OPEN MIND FOR THIS KIND OF STUFF? “Yeah, that is where you have to start, with an open mind. At the end of the day it comes down to what results we can get to. That is yet to be seen.”
WHY DO YOU SAY THAT ABOUT THE AERODYNAMICS? “Aerodynamics are really cool from an engineering standpoint and showcase all the technology in the sport that perhaps gets written off as not having a lot of technology. To that end game it also creates a lot of issues with our product to our fans. As the cars get faster by themselves with aerodynamics they get slower in a pack because they drag each other down. That really prohibits the side-by-side passing and a lot of things we like to see as race fans and competitors that make the wheels of our sport go around, which is the fans and their happiness. Anything we can do to lower that would be a positive.”
ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED YOU AREN’T ON THE COUNCIL? “Not really. I didn’t earn the spot. To earn the spot you had to be the highest driver in each respective manufacturer and I wasn’t the highest Ford and the numbers games being what they are with the Chevrolet drivers kind of having control of the senate so to speak, I wasn’t going to get voted in and I understand that.”
WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE CULTURE OF JIM CALDWELL AND THE LIONS SO FAR? “Well, I just walked out, so I am really fresh. I love the facility. It is clean and I like the look of it. I would like to see them on the field to give a better answer. I like the car!”
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE PLAYER? “It is hard to not say Calvin Johnson. The guy is amazing. He is a 99 player on Madden.”
YOU PLAY MADDEN? “I have played Madden as the Detroit Lions for the last 10 years consecutively. In our racing community we have a Madden league with about a half a dozen drivers in it and we play against each other. I am the Detroit Lions. We are on our fourth or fifth season and I have developed the team. I have Stafford up to a 99 rating now. I am really good as a quarterback. I am not very good running the ball. I am hopeful Abdullah will come in and help out my running game and the Lions too. I need him to have a great start to the year to bump up his ratings.”
WHO ELSE IS IN THE LEAGUE WITH YOU? “Dale Jr., Regan Smith. Ty Dillon was in it but he just quit.”
YOU GUYS BEAT HIM TOO BAD OR WHAT? “Here is what happens. You play like two or three seasons and you maybe do a lot of yelling at the TV and then your girlfriend or wife walks in and questions why you are yelling at a video game. You can explain that for maybe year one or two but season three or four it gets old real quick and eventually you lose that battle. That is usually what happens to most drivers. We tried to get the girls to play but they didn’t want to play. We haven’t won that battle yet.”
